U.S. OPEN: Golfers going to have to become mudders this weekend at Merion

Thursday, June 13, 2013

They are not being served in the player’s dining room but competitors are about to be served a super serving of mud balls in the 113th U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club.

Torrential rain made a soggy 6,996-yard, par-course soggier than wet bread. Now, the one condition that jangles the nerves could play a significant role in who walks away with the U.S. Open trophy.

Mud balls could determine victory or force a U.S. Open player to shake his head in disgust after finding his plight, then attempt to determine what kind of shot he should execute and finally watch as his golf ball spirals off Planet Earth then drops into matted fescue or forty yards wide or short of its intended landing site.

Anyone is lying if they tell you that mud on the right side of a ball moves the ball left or vice versa. Mud balls have a mind of their own.

Albert Einstein would struggle with a definitive formula for how a golf ball reacts with a splotch of dirt distorting spin, rotation and ball reaction.

Mud balls are like herding cats fritzed up on catnip.

Players may not speak the infamous ‘S-word’ but at least they man up about a dirty subject like mud balls.

McDowell said he thought “golf is designed to be played from a closely mown fairway. If you hit it in that fairway you deserve a great lie and a great opportunity to attack the green surface. That’s the reward you get for hitting the fairway.”

The 2010 U.S. Open winner may have logically worked out reasons for implementation of “lift, clean and place” but he would be hard pressed to win that argument against the USGA and R&A, golf’s power rule makers.

No players are going to receive preferred lies during tournaments hosted by those organizations.

“I get the fact that the USGA and the Masters Committee and the R&A, they don’t like giving the golf ball in hand, club length, lift, clean and place because you can use that rule to your advantage,” McDowell acknowledged.

McDowell should realize this is not the club championship for a local Northern Island municipal course. This is the bloody U.S. Open about to produce more blues than Muddy Waters.

Lee Trevino, who in 1971 beat Jack Nicklaus in a playoff for the U.S. Open title here, joked he never had to worry about mud balls because he hit such low shots that his golf ball would be washed as it rolled across wet fairways.

Good joke, but the reality is professional golfers have grown accustomed to a touchy-feely method of golf that allows leniency.

USGA tournaments reframes talent and forces golfers to play the ball down and dirty.

David Graham, a U.S. Open winner at Merion GC in 1981, sounded old school with his opinion on mud balls.

“That’s golf. It’s just the luck of the draw. You get a good lie, you get a bad lie, you see two guys drive it 275, 300 yards; one finishes in a divot, the other one’s got a perfect lie,” Graham reasoned.

“So, it’s the rub of the green and maybe that’s one of the facets of golf that make it so intriguing is to be able to play and adapt to those kinds of things.”

L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Reach him at laparker@trentonian.com or follow him on Twitter at laparker6.